


sesquipedalian

by distantdreaming



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Bisexual Will Solace, College AU, F/M, M/M, literally just college shenanigans and figuring out it's okay to be you, mental health and discussions of related matter will definitely be present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-05 19:26:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15870195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantdreaming/pseuds/distantdreaming
Summary: (adj.)  Characterized by long words; long-winded.__Nico's never really been one to wax poetic on other people, or to have crushes, or to talk about his sexuality, but then he fucks up once and compliments a guy in a shoe store and it's all downhill from there. Tags added as needed.





	1. paraph

**Author's Note:**

> (n.) A flourish after a signature, originally as a precaution against forgery.  
> __
> 
> hello i'm alive. i haven't posted shit for these two in months, if you remember me feel free to insult me in the comments, i have had a whole lot of life's bullshit and haven't had the headspace to sit and write for a long time. idk when updates are gonna be but here's 3k of something to offer and we'll see what happens, feel free to come harass me on tumblr if i forget about updating as it is entirely possible i might.
> 
> also if you know my shit, throwback to logolepsy, time to learn some more vocabulary. beef up your trivia knowledge!!

Nico wasn’t fond of math. 

It wasn’t that he had a distaste for numbers or symbols, or structure and problem solving, but that he and arithmetic just did  _ not _ get along. It was something about the way that the smallest mistake could lead you to a hilariously wrong solution that  _ seems _ to make perfect sense, but really only ends in disaster. Like computer coding, math liked to stab you in the back for the littlest mistakes, for even the slightest wrong move.

Anyway, Nico already had a C in Advanced Algebra, and he was mad about it.

He’d asked to be placed in a lower level math course, he’d asked if he could just maybe  _ not _ take anything above basic, almost remedial math from high school, but all of his advisors weren’t having it. 

_ Challenge yourself _ , they’d said.  _ It’ll look good on your transcripts, you’ll use it later in life! _

What the hell was Nico gonna be doing on the daily that would require him to find the value of x in a complex equation he had to create from scratch? Fucking  _ nothing _ , that’s what.

Thankfully, it was early enough in the semester that he could drop and swap the class for something less annoying, and he clicked the confirm button on enrolling in College Algebra, which was kind of the same thing, only he wouldn’t actually be learning much of anything new. It was just getting reminded of what he did in high school, a new way to graph, and that was about it. He liked the sound of that.

Advanced Algebra and his merciless professor can go fuck themselves, honestly. He was an  _ art _ major, with a minor in  _ history _ . Math was not a necessity, and he didn’t give a shit what his transcripts said. Fuck ‘em.

“...ath is always a useful skill! You never know when you’re gonna need it! And with my tutoring, of course he’ll pass!” Annabeth’s voice is sounding somewhere past the screen of his laptop, but he can’t be bothered to look.

“I never use math,” Percy fires back, and usually Percy’s kind of full of shit and Nico tends to disagree with him a lot both out of principle and self-preservation, but this is a circumstance where he finds himself internally nodding along.

“Oh?” Nico can hear the challenge in Annabeth’s voice. He sighs, but it’s quiet, and they wouldn’t notice if he put his headphones in, and he’s  _ so _ tempted.

“I don’t! Not the stuff they teach in college! I’m a marine biology major!” Percy insists, and he’s so, so oblivious.

“Marine biology is a  _ science _ , you use math  _ every single day, _ Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth must punch him or something after this because Percy makes a muffled  _ ow _ sound.

“Well, either way, it’s  _ his _ life, Wise Girl!” Percy says like that’s the be all end all argument winner.

It  _ is _ , but Percy doesn’t really need any bigger of a head.

“Is this what it’s gonna be like when you two have kids?” Nico asks, clicking out of the school portal to go fuck around on twitter.

Percy sputters loudly, and Nico kind of wants to see the look on his face, but he’s very comfortable and moving the laptop screen would disrupt that, so he settles for listening and using his imagination. Annabeth’s huff is loud, but not truly irritated, more amused than anything else. 

“I  _ just _ think you should stick it out, Nico,” Annabeth says sagely, and Nico snorts.

“I feel like that’s an innuendo for something,” he points out blandly, and now he listens to  _ her _ sputter for a moment before he continues. “Anyway, I already dropped it and enrolled online in College Algebra, so it really doesn’t matter anymore.”

Percy snorts, squeaks in protest, and then they scuffle. Nico puts his headphones in and hits play on Spotify before he has to listen to any kissing sounds.

***

On one hand, college is miles, miles, miles better than high school. There are no weirdly rigid social groups, there aren't any teachers trying to convince you that if you set a single toe out of line, you’ll fail at everything you try to do in life, etc. It’s nice. The freedom to set his own schedule is nice, the freedom to study at 4am if he so chooses to make poor life choices is nice, and he likes it.

On the other hand, if he has to listen to one more straight kid tell him about how he has no idea what it’s like to be discriminated against, he’s gonna catapult himself into the sun.

“Brittney,” he says, talking over this girl in his sculpture class as she tries to convince their group to do the project on immigration, like the current socio-political climate around that is peaceful and boring and noncombative.

“It’s  _ Britlee _ ,” she corrects, sharp, staring him down through the lenses of her shiny rose gold circle-lense glasses, the ones they all know by now she wears purely for aesthetic. “God, at least  _ try!” _

“Whatever,” Nico says, because he can’t honestly be bothered to remember the names of people he has every intention of never speaking to again after this class ends, “No. Let’s pick something less...less.”

“But I have a lot of opinions on—” Britlee says, and she sounds like she’s about to keep going, so he cuts her off again.

“No,” he says, bland. “I’m not doing it on immigration. We’re not doing controversial shit, it was literally part of the rules.”

“It’s not controversial,” she insists. “There’s the law and then there’s breaking the law! But  _ fine _ , we can do one on--”

“How about we just do something on what a house would be like in the future, _Jetsons_ -style?” Another kid asks, and Nico’s nodding immediately, even though he has no idea what the fuck this person’s name is either.

“Yes,” he says, nodding. “Perfect. We can wing it, it can’t be wrong because it’s the future and anything is possible.”

Britlee looks very put out. Nico could not give less of a shit. He signs up for the parts of the project everyone else hates because he genuinely doesn’t mind the 2D designing of the poster and business card they need, and he’s not overly fond of needing to build things anyway. This is just a mandatory class for his major, for some absurd reason, so he’ll get through it however he can.

He’s not about to let her pull another impossible topic out of the air, because if it ends up being something on sexualities and he has to go and try and convince not only himself but his whole class that it’s something he’s able to freely talk about in public, then it’s not gonna end well at all. The only people aware he isn’t straight are Jason and Hazel, and he’s gonna keep it that way for as long as he possibly can.

***

The family business is making high-end caskets and working with corpses, so it’s really no wonder his father is some terrible cliché. Still, the black cane tipped with a little silver skull with red ruby eyes is a  _ bit _ much, especially combined with the all black suit and tie.

Nico’s here for the extra bits of fashion, and here for aiming to buy the darkest black of everything he can find, but he’s also aware he’d like to avoid looking like he’d crawled out of a Hot Topic ad in the early 2000s. His father has no such qualms, and his long black hair is even tied back with what looks suspiciously like a black silk ribbon.

Nico’s four seconds from flipping up his hood and trying to let the crowd swallow him in this mall so he can avoid being so close to someone as blatantly Aesthetic Goth as his father.

“You said the store was ahead?” his father asks, and Nico bites back a curse because the man has an  _ uncanny _ sense of when Nico’s ready and willing to bail on him.

“Yeah,” he says instead, and he shoves his hands in his pockets and tries to look like he’s not cringing. Hazel’s worth it. Hazel is worth an awkward, embarrassing outing with his haughty, questionably fashionable father. Hazel is worth much more.

“Good. I dislike malls, they’re far too crowded.” Hades picks up speed, and Nico rolls his eyes, even if he agrees with that particular statement.

Nico’s not really short by any means, but his father is a bit over six feet tall and Nico is hovering at right around five eight, so when his father is lengthening his stride, it means Nico has to actively put effort into keeping pace with him. Still, moving faster means this is  _ over _ with sooner, and he’d full on sprint if the crowd wasn’t so damn thick.

Some toddler shrieks close enough to him that it makes him jump, and he scowls automatically and dodges a stroller and a middle-aged man’s pretzel that’s trapped in a gesturing hand. His father is parting the crowd like it’s nothing, and Nico’s stuck weaving through the same people that instinctively dodge his father’s aura, and it’s so fucking annoying.

He used to be able to part crowds like this, back when he was fifteen and pissed at the world and made up of anger and hormones and nothing else, but he’s twenty-two now and being that fucking mad all the time takes more energy that he has to give, so he’s settled for apathy instead. Now he’s invisible, blending in with the masses of other stressed and depressed millennials just trying to get by, and it’s frustrating.

“God, fuck this,” Nico says, and he lets the crowd sweep him up and deposit him right by a service hallway. He ducks into it and speedwalks, because he knows there’s a busted light at the end of this hall and an actual Hot Topic still up near the store he and his father are trying to get to, and Nico’s power is the handy-dandy ability to travel through shadows.

Some people have fancy powers, like Percy’s ability to control water and speak with sea life and horses (and Nico has  _ never _ understood the horses thing, honestly, because what kind of bullshit correlation), Annabeth’s ability to predict the outcomes of strategic decisions and act accordingly, Jason’s fucking ability to play with  _ lighting _ and wind, and Nico...Nico has shadow travel. It’s not  _ bad _ , but it tires him out and it’s really a pretty solo thing since it makes everyone else sick when he pulls them along. 

Hazel, as his half-sister, did not get this ability. Instead, she’s able to form precious jewels if she concentrates really, really hard, but they’re usually flawed and break apart. She’s managed a few really nice ones, so she doesn’t have any issue paying for things, but she says it’s too much of a pain in the ass to be a regular thing. She can also manipulate perceptions of things when she puts her mind to it, can make you think something is happening that isn’t or that you’re seeing something you’re not.

Hades has...some kind of power. It’s  _ something _ , and it’s morbid and it’s fancy and it has something to do with understanding corpses and being able to determine the cause of death within hours, no matter what, but Nico’s still not sure exactly  _ what _ it is. Hades doesn’t talk about it, and Nico doesn’t ask.

But shadow travel, all things considered, is pretty underwhelming. Nico’s half hoping he gets some other mutation along the same lines eventually, because then at least it would balance out with all of his friends’ obnoxiously powerful abilities, but alas. He is apparently only able to do this one thing.

Still, it’s useful, and he falls through the shadow in the hall and steps out in the corner of Hot Topic, nods to the cashier he scares almost literally out of her employee vest and leaves the store. Hades will find him eventually, probably, so he just turns into his actual destination and heads to the women’s boot section in the back.

Hazel has had her eyes on a floral pair of Doc Martens for months, but she can’t convince herself to spend the money on them. This works in Nico’s favor because it’s her birthday in a month or so and he’s convinced their father to foot the bill in exchange for signing on the card and knowing he’s at least getting Hazel something she actually wants.

The nearest sales clerk pops by after Nico’s only been looking for a minute or two, and he shoves a box onto the shelf Nico’s inspecting. Mildly surprised but not bothered by the boldness and sudden movement, Nico glances at him.

His nametag says  _ WILL _ and he’s easily a little taller than Nico’s father at least, if not reaching Jason and Percy’s annoying six three status. He’s got cornflower blue eyes, a slight tan, probably about six million freckles, and a megawatt grin that’s aimed directly at Nico.

“Hey, looking for a certain size or item?” He asks, and he manages to sound like he genuinely cares, which is a serious feat for a very busy mall inching toward the holiday season and crawling with families and their terrible, escapee, havoc-causing children.

Nico arches a brow at him, but he nods after a second. “My sister’s birthday is coming up, and I need the floral Docs in a size seven if you have them?”

Will hums and sets down the other boxes in his arms, picking up the display shoe to check the size. “I mean,  _ maybe _ ? I’ll check. These’ve been hella popular, but we got a shipment in, like, yesterday or whatever? So we might still have some.”

Nico has to hold in a snort because he knows damn well Will would probably be way less casual with his wording if his father had arrived. As it is, Will’s actually kinda cute, and Nico’s kinda very gay, so he’s entertained. Will says something vague about a back room, scoops up all the boxes, and disappears.

Nico sits on the bench because he didn’t see any boxes in the right size and he’d been wearing the same pair of black vans for over a year and they haven’t failed him yet, so he doesn’t need to look for anything else. The store is just and flooded with annoying customers, and Nico digs in his pockets for his headphones and finds them in a knot.

Before he untangles them completely and before Will gets back, his father arrives, and Nico ignores the slightly cold glare he gets for his shortcut. He merely shrugs when his father arches a judgemental brow, pockets the headphones exasperatedly, and Will shows incredible timing by arriving himself with exactly the right amount of grace that saves Nico from needing to say anything — namely by tripping a little over a box on the floor and practically throwing the right size of boot at Nico’s face.

He catches it because he has at least decent reflexes, and Will kicks the offending box under the shelf with a huff and pink cheeks. He’s even cuter now, and Nico doesn’t bother hiding his amused grin.

Hades plucks the box right out of Nico’s hands. “Are these the ones?”

Nico rolls his eyes, and he’s at just the right angle where Will can see him and Hades can’t, and Will’s lips twitch at the corners, so it’s a victory. Someone can acknowledge the pains Nico has to go through, and that’s enough. “Yeah, father, those are the ones she wants.”

“Excellent. Let’s leave.” Hades turns on his heel and heads straight for the registers, not even acknowledging Will.

Nico rolls his eyes again for good measure. “Sorry, my dad’s an asshole. Thanks for your help, and you look cute when you blush. Have a good day!” 

Will’s face went from amused smile to flattered shock in a beautifully fast transition, and Nico smiles, waves, and turns to follow his father, content. He’s not necessarily flirty, and this is very much out of the blue for him, but sometimes he likes to watch people grin to remind himself there’s more to life than his father’s bitter ass outlook.

He stands in line and listens to his father’s foot tap on the ground and pretends to not notice as much as he can, because acknowledging it means giving it the power to annoy him, and he  _ refuses _ . There’s a minor commotion as they reach the front of the line and the cashier that was about to take them steps back and disappears behind a pillar for a moment, and then  _ Will _ is waving them over with a smile.

Shit. Was this because of the compliment? Because Nico does not think ahead, like, ever, and he’s technically not out to his father yet. Fuck.

His father strides forward, and Nico tries very hard to make his face say  _ please don’t out me but I still think you’re cute _ , and he’s not sure how successful he is. Will’s smiling warm, but it’s not too focused on him, and Will makes sure to handle the transaction without missing any beats.

Nico’s father signs the credit card receipt with a paraph, and it’s pretentious and annoying, and it takes three seconds more than Nico’s anxiety is really willing to sit through, so now his heart had climbed up into his throat and made itself right at home.

This is why he doesn’t go outside. He says nice things to pretty boys like once a fucking year, and then he has a fucking anxiety attack over it because he has no impulse control and also zero ability to keep from accidentally outing himself to strangers, apparently. Shit. He’s a disaster.

Jason’s gonna laugh his ass off later when Nico’s drunk enough to relive this, but right now all he wants is for it to end. He does not miss the way his skin crawls when he remembers that this thing that is so natural to him and to his friends is still not the norm, is still not wholly accepted, and that his father is old-fashioned and strict and fucking pedantic as shit about manners, so there’s like an ice cube’s chance in hell of him accepting it.

Will pushes the bag over the counter, his father grabs it, and then he’s striding out the door before Nico’s brain even catches up. Nico blinks, unsticks his feet from the floor, and moves to follow on autopilot when Will taps the counter, grabbing his attention.

Will’s megawatt grin is back, and he slides a few slips of paper toward Nico but doesn’t try to touch him. “Here’s some coupons, just in case you decide to swing by and grab yourself or a friend something later. Have a great day, and tell your sister a random  _ Journey’s _ employee wishes her a very happy birthday.”

Nico’s anxiety has the controls at the moment, so he doesn’t verbally respond. He nods instead and takes the coupons with what he hopes is a grateful smile, and he’s rushing after his father right after, because his father is his ride and he is not about to shadow travel all the way home when riding in a car is considerably less taxing.

***

When he unfolds the coupons later, at home, about to pin them to the fridge in case Jason or Percy want to nab them, something makes him pause.

It’s writing, in pen, across a bit of white space in the corner of a  _ $5 OFF YOUR NEXT PURCHASE _ slip, and it’s a phone number and Will’s name and a little tiny heart, and Nico’s glass of red wine falls to the floor and shatters in an overly dramatic cliché utterly deserving of the disaster gay he is.

  
  



	2. collywobbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico's anxiety comes back to bite him in the ass, and that's pretty much it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (n)  
> 1\. an upset stomach  
> 2\. an intense feeling of fear, apprehension, or nervousness  
> __
> 
> Please be aware that there is vivid depictions of anxiety and related issues, please keep yourself safe. I can summarize or tell you were to stop and star again if needed, just comment if you'd like that.

“Jason,” Nico says, and he’s not yet wine-drunk enough to keep the despair out of his tone. “What did I _do_?”

Jason, who is not only still sober but is currently doing homework with textbooks spread over the entire table save for a little halo around Nico’s wine glass and coupon slip, does not look up. “Text him. Or call him. You said he was cute?”

“Thinking someone is cute and texting them are entirely different things!” Nico insists, and it sounds rational in his head when he’s buzzed as hell, but out loud it falls a little flat. He frowns and takes another sip of wine.

“That’s a rather long-winded way of saying ‘I’m scared of rejection,’” Jason comments, writing something in the margins of his extensive notes. “Don’t be. Worse comes to worst, you’re still single and nothing in your life changes at all if you text him and he either ignores you or rejects you.”

This is very logical, and therefore very frustrating, so Nico drinks more wine. “What if he’s secretly an alien hell-bent on human destruction?”

“Then you have someone to bond with over mutual hatred for the general human existence, and a chance to learn about a new culture right from the source. Sounds fun.” Jason uncaps a highlighter and drags it through a few lines.

Nico huffs, because that actually somehow sounds inviting, and takes yet another sip. He’d kinda wanted to be talked out of texting, but this is having the opposite effect, and he doesn’t really know what to do with it. Mostly because the anxiety he has raging in his chest stems from the possibility that it will not only _not_ fail, that it might actually _lead_ to something.

Because then Nico will _have_ to come out.

His mismatched, ragtag friend group is far too closely knit to let him hide a significant other without either worrying about it or annoying the shit out of him, neither of which he wants to really deal with. They’re also the kind of people always ready to adopt some new person into the puppy pile that is their group, which is sweet and very much comforting, but, still. None of them are even remotely homophobic, but Nico still can’t fight the feeling that he’s one step away from being rejected, like one wrong move will have them realizing he wasn’t worth the effort this entire time.

Jason’s eyes eventually raise from the pages when Nico’s been silent for long enough, and Nico tries to ignore them, but Jason’s got this habit of giving you this older-brother-style Look that manages to be comforting and incredibly annoying all at once. It shouldn’t be, since Jason is actually the _younger_ sibling in his family, but Nico chalks it up to being friends with Leo Valdez for so damn long, since Leo is kind of like if a loose canon was crammed into a person suit and set loose on the world.

Nico drains the last of the wine from his glass, grabs the coupon, and moves to escape.

“Nico,” Jason says, and it’s the tone he uses when he’s about to be the mom friend.

“Jason,” Nico says, and it’s the tone he uses when he’s about to run away from emotional connection and hide in his room.

Jason gets a frown that Nico can both hear and feel without even needing to see it, and he sets his wine glass in the sink probably a little harder than he should’ve, but it doesn’t break, so it’s fine. Everything is _fine_.

He hears Jason start to stand, so he chooses the coward’s way out and flicks off the kitchen lights and lets the shadows swallow him, falling out a moment later onto his bed and scrambling up to lock the door. Jason doesn’t say anything he can hear or try to come find him, but it’s still a tense few minutes where Nico is kind of afraid he might and kind of upset he doesn’t.

It’s not a good feeling in either direction if he’s being totally honest, so he ends up curling up his bed and fighting past collywobbles for sleep.

***

He should probably just fucking face his anxiety and send a text, but that’s not really how anxiety _works_ , so instead, he spends the next two days pretending he doesn’t spend a long time staring at the coupon and doing exactly that.

It’s so dumb. He’s an adult and he should be able to fucking handle this, but no. Instead, he avoids Jason’s concerned mama bear looks and tells Percy to fuck off more than usual because Jason seems to be spreading his concern among Nico’s friend group, which is frustrating. He’s either do it or he won’t, and he could _really_ do either without this fucking awkwardness.

(In a way, though, this is forcing him to make a decision he probably otherwise wouldn’t until it was too late, but Jason doesn’t really need to know that, so.)

His option are currently texting sober, when he’s likely to be more coherent, or texting drunk, when he’s likely to be more friendly. They’re not really _good_ options, per say, but at least they’re there. He feels kind of like not texting is rude, even though this was an unprompted and very forward move by this Will person.

Damn, maybe Alecto did drill manners into him that horrible few years he was stuck with her as a governess. Fuck, he didn’t want to even retain that _memory_ , let alone anything she actually told him to do, but alas, here he was, being _polite_.

Gross.

The edges of the coupon are worn from Nico’s fiddling fingers and he’s actually pretty close to straight up remembering all ten digits from how long he’s been contemplating this, which is weird, and he isn’t some romance novel heartsick hero, so what the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just function like a normal person?

Distantly, he’s aware that this is his mental health talking, that normal is a farce and there’s no proper way to exist, but still. It feels so unfair, battling his way through invisible barriers when he watches his friends glide past without so much as the slightest stumble over things he has to climb like mountains. It’s hard, so hard, and it’s so, so unfair, but he’s made it this far, and that’s at least something.

“Fuck,” he says to his ceiling, because he’s frustrated but he doesn’t really have enough energy to get legitimately upset about it, so he’ll settle for cursing at inanimate objects until he figures out what he wants to do.

***

He eventually does text, two days after getting the coupon, and it feels weird and he feels weird but he hits send before his anxiety can make him delete it.

**to: unsaved number**

_so do you regularly give out your number to complete strangers_

He doesn’t need to have a meltdown over sending it, because he gets a reply after only a minute or two.

**from: unsaved number**

_is this the pretty goth boy from monday???? say yes omg_

Nico feels his cheeks turn bright red. “Shit.”

**to: unsaved number**

_uhhh??? i bought boots for my sister_

The response this time comes even quicker, Nico’s phone buzzing in his fingers mere moments after he hits send.

**from: unsaved number**

_i in no way just shrieked in happiness in the middle of a starbucks. hi. how are you. my name is will & i think ur adorable & you’ve been stuck in my head since i met you. can we meet up again? _

Well, Nico’s _fucked_.

He wasn’t expecting WIll to be this forward, to be anywhere near this blunt, and it’s startling. He stares at the text, feeling the cold grip of anxiety creep around in his chest, wrapping icy fingers around his lungs and prodding at his heart, making it beat faster and faster. With it comes the jittery fidgeting, the need to be doing _something_ with his hands, something to justify the racing of his pulse and the unsettling warmth that spreads over his face and chest.

Distantly, he becomes aware that this is a panic attack, or an anxiety attack, or something, but at the moment he just throws his phone across the room — he has an Otterbox for this precise reason — and falls face down on his bed, dragging the pillows close to squeeze them tight.

Muscle tension is a bitch and he’s already generally so tense that he aches, but sometimes all he knows how to do when this happens is just squeeze everything tighter, try and stop the trembling and the hot/cold feeling of fear and panic. He can distantly feel the shadows of the room, feel them drawing darker and deeper around him.

He loses track of time, of how long he stays tense and buried in his pillows, but eventually, he hears a knock on his door.

He stares at it, contemplates answering, knowing it’s Jason. Often, if Jason knows he’s home — and he’s, like, 70% sure his keys are out there somewhere — he’ll peek in to check on Nico if he doesn’t answer the knock, since he locks his door when he sleeps and otherwise he could use a distraction if he can’t make himself answer.

His contemplation takes too long, because the door cracks open and Jason’s gold-rimmed glasses glint in the dim light peeking through Nico’s wide open blinds, muted by the thick shadows, as he pokes his head in. He sees Nico immediately, and his expression softens. “Want a hug?”

Nico swallows hard, realizing abruptly that right now his touch aversion is gone and he’s craving one, and nods. Jason slips the rest of the way in and quietly shuts the door, and then he’s scooping Nico half upright to pull him into a warm, secure hug.

Nico lets a shaky breath out against his shoulder and unclenches his arms from around the pillows, shoving them out of the way to curls his arms around Jason instead and hold on, finally feeling like he’s getting somewhere in riding out the panic.

He’s probably crying, he usually is when he panics, but he doesn’t really feel it. Instead, he feels the searing heat of Jason’s hand as it goes up and down and up and down his back, rhythmic. As usual, the proximity is terrifying but nice at the same time, even if he’ll start to feel like he’s overheating when he alms down.

Sometimes that makes the panic worse, but usually, the hell loop doesn’t last _too_ long, because at some point he wears himself out and the exhaustion eats up the dredges of the anxiety once and for all and leaves him barely able to keep his eyes open.

This feels like the exhaustion will win out pretty fast, so he stays where he is and closes his eyes. Jason doesn’t try to get him to explain, doesn’t try to talk about anything or tell him empty words just to fill the air; instead, Jason just sits and holds him, which is exactly what he needs.

Eventually, the breathlessness begins to fade, the restless energy and the need to be doing _something_ to distract, and he’s able to drag in a ragged, slow breath and relax some of the tension. It’s not much, and he knows he’ll ache like _hell_ tomorrow because of this, but it’s as much as he can normally relax, so.

Jason’s fingers shift, pressing into his shoulders, and it hurts in the kind of good way massaging out knots only can, that deep ache that gives way to instant relief when the pressure lifts. He hears his own breath stutter in first the pain and then the blissful loosening, and he lets his arms melt down off Jason’s shoulders and fall like jelly to either side.

Jason keeps going, on either side of his neck, and his fingers buzz gently with static electricity that loosens the muscles even _more_ and he’s freeing more movement and range of motion than Nico’s had in a few _weeks_ , and before he can even really comprehend it, Nico falls asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo you guys are sweet as _hell_ and I love you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a while since I could sit down and get any sort of coherent writing out, and right now it's this fic and my novel, which I'm _finally_ getting off the ground. I'm so, so glad you guys are enjoying this! Again, I pull heavily from my own experiences, and I'm sure this depiction doesn't fit everyone's version of anxiety, but I want to do justice to it and I won't be shying away from the gritty details here, as usual with my fics. I also want to touch on the things I've learned and understood more in the past few years, so we'll start to see a healthier dynamic between them, which will be fun!


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